Jacob and Esau: Not Arbitrary Choice

“…having conceived by our father Isaac” (Romans 9:10).

One should note that the aim of this sentence is by no means brought to completion; rather it is left hanging and needs a brief addition, that is, words to be understood, so that it may not appear to limp.

What I mean is this.

He had already shown, from the fact that Isaac was given to Abraham by promise, that the children of the flesh would not necessarily be counted to him as offspring, and that it would rather befit him to bear the name of father of those who are of faith and promise.

Then he takes up Rebecca and what happened in her case, and says, “And not only so,” that is, my argument will not stop at the birth of Isaac alone, “but also Rebecca, having conceived by one, our father Isaac” (Romans 9:10).

And he needed to add something like this: “will also be brought in as proof and assurance,” that is, “will serve as a pattern and image of the calling and grace that come by election and foreknowledge.”

For had something of that kind been added, his sentence would then have seemed complete.

But I do not know how he came to pass this over and go straight on to what was said and done at the birth of Isaac’s sons.

“What then shall we say? Is there injustice with God? By no means” (Romans 9:14), and so on, down to “he called us, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles” (Romans 9:24).

It was likely that some fault-finders would suppose that Jacob and Esau had met with an untested swing of will, and that the one was loved because God nodded assent out of personal favour, while the other was hated (Romans 9:13).

So the apostle of necessity does away in advance with this view of the matter as ruinous, and tries to speak in defence of the decrees from above, setting against his own words, as it were, what seems to oppose them.

For if, he says, even before the infants had done anything, before any testing of them and before any deeds, the one was thought worthy of love and the other was hated, and was even appointed to serve the younger (Romans 9:11–12), then perhaps, he says, God is even unjust.

And then how is this not senseless?

For if Jacob had not become a good man, if Esau had not been wicked, one might reasonably say that the foreknowledge had perhaps gone astray, and that what was determined for both of them was the work of a random impulse and an unsteady will.

But since Esau was very perverse and Jacob wise, God’s foreknowledge would do no wrong at all in granting, even ahead of time, to the one who was good in his ways that he should be loved, and to the one who was not such that he should be condemned.

For it would have been no hard thing for God to bear with them patiently and wait for the time of their deeds, so that each might be shown plainly by his own actions.

But since the mystery of grace by election and of the gift given in foreknowledge had to be sketched out beforehand, for that very reason God, our supreme craftsman in such things, put the moment to good use and all but seized it.

At the birth of the children he assured Isaac that, though he was the one and only son from Abraham, he would be the father of countless nations, those who are of the promise and who would be called in faith.

But if, in keeping with…